José Miguel Parrella Romero

Hello, I'm José Miguel Parrella Romero. I live in Caracas, Venezuela. I use FOSS since 2003, and I'm a government and private consultant, while still studying Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Universidad Central de Venezuela.

When it's possible, I try to keep up my Ubuntu-related work, too. I don't use Ubuntu and I wouldn't recommend it in most environments, but I think there's no reason to flame them or to reject to work with them. Therefore I try to take care of bugs and uploading my packages to REVU. Please contact me if you need any information regarding these packages in Debian, Ubuntu or Debian and Ubuntu based distributions.

Webian

Since 2006 I'm interested in developing a Web-based framework for Debian contributors. It aims to be an integral system with BTS, QA and developer tools in a single interface. I proposed this idea to SoC 2006, but it was rejected. It's now delayed by one year or so (and SoC is now accepting related proposals!) but I expect to finish it in 2007. It will be Perl-based, using Catalyst. Most likely it'll be hosted in Berlios or Alioth. I don't expect all contributors to use it. I'm actually designing it to make it easy for contributors in Debian and Ubuntu Venezuela to understand the criticals of package maintaining and to understand that a distribution is more than a mere CD with a set of packaged software.

Linux-based distributions

Though I've used most main distributions out there, I've always been a huge Debian activist. Thus, I've been one of the government consultants in the migration process (since most organizations in Venezuela will likely choose Debian), including the Department of Science and Technology, which hired around five Debian-related contributors in order to build the National FOSS Distribution, to be used in new, Government-sponsored PC's, and thousands of access centers. Since then, I've been developing other Debian-based distributions for enterprise environments.

Talks

I gave a lightning talk in DC6, and a new talk of mine is approved for DC7. I've also been a speaker in other events, such as the World Forum on Free Knowledge (Venezuela, India, 2004-2006) and the National Congress on Free Software (nationwide, 2005-2007). You may find information (in spanish) regarding my talks in http://presentaciones.bureado.com.ve/